FORM 29'er: Expeditions West

[Scott Brady]

I have decided to go all-in on my adventure bicycle, and think I have found the perfect combination of attributes (for me), including singletrack performance and long-distance dirt touring. Think White Rim, etc.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on bicycles, at all. I consider myself pretty well informed, but know that many of you are experts. I look forward to any feedback on this project from the members here.

The first decision was a frame. There are a lot of arguments for steel, but I want titanium. I have been riding a Willits for the past few months (thanks Mike), and love the feel of the Ti. I also like the simple clean-up, no paint and elegant result Ti provides, especially when combined with a few black components.

I liked the Willits frame, but wanted something local and a little more bespoke. I wanted a designer that understood what I was trying to accomplish, could fit me for the bike and make subtle adjustments for my riding style and specs. About a month ago, I took a trip to FORM Cycles in Sedona and talked with Daryl, the owner and chief designer. It just so happened that Daryl also owns a sweet Unlimited Rubicon and loves backcountry exploration by 4wd too. His wife Melanie is also super cool, and operates some serious NFP work in Africa and various other interesting spots around the world. Extremely well traveled and has some fantastic stories about Africa, India, etc. Very cool people.

For the frame, we are doing a custom "expedition" build with larger head tube and larger dia. tubing overall, rack mounts, etc. More details on this soon.

It will be a 29'er and most likely a 2x9 or 1x9 drivetrain. Visually, this gives a good reference:

For the wheels, our very own 1speed (Jim) from Here be Dragons wheel builders will be stringing up a set of tubeless 29" wheels, which he says will be "bomber". I am honored to have wheels built by one of our own members. Jim is going to be giving a play-by-play of the wheel build in this thread.

For components, that is still a bit in the air. More research is required. Looking mostly at the SRAM 9-speed stuff for durability (no carbon cages) and playing with the idea of the TruVativ HammerShmidt. Thoughts?

Flounder (Christophe) is going to help with adv luggage/packing, which will come a little later in the process.

Then, White Rim ExPo trip in the fall. Anyone want to come along?

 

[Christophe Noel]

The bikepacking (still don't dig that word, but..) crowd was really anxious to see those Hammer Schmidt cranks come out. They were first soft presented at the '07 Interbike, but when they wer officially released at the '08 Interbike, the bikepacking crowd was bummed. They just won't work for anything but aggro free-ride or downhill applications. They not only weight 5 grams more than an anvil, they require very specific mounting tabs built into the frame to really work.

There's another option. http://www.schlumpf.ch/md_engl.htm

Schumpf cranks are often paired with Rolhoff Speedhubs. A Schlumpf crank is a two speed crank with an brilliant shifter - the crank dust cap. Simply tap the dust cap with the appropriate heal and bing - you've just shifted. No cables. No shifter. No fun when the whole thing goes to crap, which it has been known to do. It also won't work unless you have the Form built with a standard shell. That BB30 shell that Daryl prefers (as I recall) won't accept anything but the few BB30 offerings - which are very nice, by the way.

With regard to internally geared hubs and cranks. Just because the complex widgetry is cleanly tucked away and out of sight, that doesn't make it any less demanding of TLC or prone to implode on day three of your journey. Even the most dire situation with a traditionaly geared bike can be fixed trail-side with a multi-tool. If your Schlumpf crank takes a dump you have a fancy hobby horse.

Beautiful bike, Scott. I'm super glad we made that trip over to Daryl's place to check out his facility. You forgot to mention another reason for buying a Form: Daryl is just a super cool dude.

 

[1speed]

This is going to be fun! :victory: I'm really excited about and grateful for the opportunity to build the wheels for this project.

I'm a big guy, 6'3" and 225lbs, and I started building wheels several years ago because I was trashing every wheelset I bought. True, I never bought anything custom built, but I went through a lot of high-end Mavics etc. with no luck.

I talked with Scott at the OVEX10 and the AT/OJ open house last weekend in Prescott about his needs. He had a few specific needs and some desires for this wheelset. First and foremost, being a 200+lb guy and wanting to carry gear for a multiple day trip, they need to be tough and reliable. On the other hand, this will not be a dedicated touring bike so I wanted to strike a balance between strength and weight. I also wanted to build with fairly common parts so if they should ever need repair (because of parts failure, not my workmanship, of course :elkgrin he will be able to get suitable parts for field repairs at almost any bike shop. Last but not least, being from a 4x4 and Overlanding background the idea of a tubeless wheelset appealed to Scott. I ride tubeless a lot but always hated dealing with finicky rim strips and such. I figure sealant is a given with cactus and such around, but pulling and stowing rim strips to put a tube in is a pain. UST 29'er rims for custom builders are basically non-existent, but I found something very cool! I've come up with a package I think will be bombproof and meet all these criteria. I'll be getting all the parts in by the end of the week and I'll detail what they are and why I chose them then.

Even Scott doesn't know what he's getting yet! :box: Like I said, this is going to be fun!

 

[efuentes]

Very, very nice :drool:

Have you ever consider getting a nice steel rigid SS AND a boutique (Titus, Ventana, etc) 100mm Full suspension. Seems to me that the nice thing about bikes is that you can have a couple for different trails and conditions.

I have a SS Monstercross, a full suspension and a road bike, and found myself using all of them.

By the way, Steel is real (Aluminium is real too, but does not rhyme) but Ti is Fly .. :victory:

Saludos

 

[trailsurfer]

Scott your new bike is going to be great.

Another drive train option is Shimano, they have just come out with their 10 speed for mountain bikes. Their advantage over SRAM is that it can be run as a 1x10, 2x10, or a 3x10.

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Very cool, congratulations Scott...! I hope you don't mind me chiming in with my $.02 if it can help...

My only thoughts are I have built a few weird bikes with weird gearing setups and have even thought about 1 x 9 quite a bit and while it sounds attractive it is equally if not more important to me personally to have the full 3 chain rings on the crank as I find I'm in my big gears quite a bit riding to and from the trails. You will spend some time on the road I would imagine here and there, especially on a touring bike, and this will help a lot. It is sort of like having 3 gears on your truck or something to that extent. In terms of reliability when if (I have never had a front derailleur fail) they simply go to the smallest chainring which is still very usable in the faster gears, so that is my $.02 on this but your choice of course...

Second, on crank choice and everything else, I would do BB7 disk brakes because they are so damn reliable and easy to fix but other than that standard XT grade components will be the best/better. My friends and I call this the "working man's bling" sort of like a nice newer Toyota Tacoma, a little more expensive but dead reliable. As a result: in terms of cranks I would simply go XT (or perhaps Truvativ Stylo or Stylo OCT if you want to save $100-$150 off the prices for the cranks you'll likely be paying). All three of these are super reliable and will save a solid 1/4 lb I figure. The issue with cranks is the strength of the bearing cups in the bottom bracket, not the cranks themselves (with the exception of RaceFace in their cross country lines due to poor design). If you want to make sure you have absolutely bomber bottom bracket cups then spring for the good Chris King cups or another quality brand. However, XT is super reliable and strong and not overly priced as well with SRAM/Truvativ being close second.

The only issue with a standard rear XT derailleur is the SHADOW versions which are from about '09 on. They use a super thin tab that makes the rear derailleurs semi disposable, about a complete 180 in design to even the previous years' model. I personally seek out pre-shadow derailleurs or you can always choose SRAM. I'll draw an illustration highlighting the chincy SHADOW derailleur. When I destroyed one by simply letting a rag get sucked into it by accident I said never again...

Good hubs and wheels are super important. I use only Hadley hubs which are the almost completely unknown BMW of hubs, if King were the Mercedes. They are also quieter, easier to rebuild/repair on the trail, and super bomber, and hand made by a small outfit in California. Mine are the titanium cassette body and are probably my favorite component of anything on my bike. Rims just need to be decent strength and quality. NoTubes Flow comes to mind, I would have someone local string them up probably using a DT Comp spoke which is strong enough for me about Christophe's height/weight and on a big heavy full suspension bike as well..

In general I have about probably 3000-5000 miles I figure on my current setup which is '08 XT across the board on a Ventana El Bastardo which in my book is in the top tier of any commercial mountain bikes, period... As far as replacement of any/all items on it in this duration: I just finally replaced my BB7s for less than $100 front and rear for the '10 season. I have done the occasional quick/cheap/easy fork oil change (which is way easier on RockShox brand stuff and the newer REBA 29er fork is the bomb, and I would take it over Fox personally)... And I did go through one shadow derailleur only due to user error with that shadow issue. I have also and repeatedly put my bike through absolute hell, probably worse than 95% of bikes see, and it has all held up great. I am due for a heavy tune including lubing my suspension pivot points and a chain replacement (get only nickel coated chains for reliability against moisture), and at some point this season I need to probably do a new set of rims/spokes due to the extremely heavy beating my wheelset has taken.. That said they still just keep on tickin..

So I hope it helps..!

cheers, andre

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Attached are the photos of the shadow and non shadow derailleurs. You'll see one with the thin tab connecting it to the bike's derailleur hanger, and one with a beefy aluminum design. Shimano is still selling both brand new luckily (and may still, permanently). If you get SRAM it is the equivalent of non shadow but my opinion is Shimano as a whole is slightly more reliable than SRAM, genuine Japanese, and excellent thought and reliability built into the design. No loss of performance whatsoever (they are pretty much identical) with non shadow and shadow versions. Shadow is slightly more "blingy" because it has about a 1/4-1/2" more clearance from rocks due to the narrower profile, but when it hits its toast...

 

[fairweather]

It will be a 29'er and most likely a 2x9 or 1x9 drivetrain.

If you are going with 2x9 I would just go with three, the extra ring adds minimal weight and you'll be glad you have it. My "road" bike is a Bianchi Axis with three rings up front so it has nice road gears plus the granny of a mtb. It is really nice when I need to do a resting spin up a big hill.

 

[Christophe Noel]

I'll second Andre's suggestion on the BB7s. As we build fancy rigs, the temptation to reach for the bling with every component has some people (like me) overlooking simple parts that are near perfect for a given application. For a true backcountry rig, BB7s are tough to beat. Again, they're one of those components that can be field repaired, not that you'll need to, with just a multi-tool.

I also agree with what others have said about the 1x9 vs. 2x9 or 3x9. 2x9 is ideal for racing where that granny gear is nothing but dead weight and added complexity. If you're going add a shifter and derailleur for a mountain bike built with some touring in mind, just pop for the 3x9. However, being an avid SS rider, I tend to lean towards a 1x9 as the ideal touring set up for singletrack.

There's tons of personal preference with a build. I for one would rather take up bowling than deal with tubeless again. The thought of dinking around with tubeless tires in the backcountry makes my cringe.

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Same here, I gave up tubeless after messing with it for a year but I am also limited to non UST tires currently with 650b. the biggest thing is at my weight (220lbs) it seems to have a lot of lack of stability. I love the concept though. there is a much better tube brew than Stan's as well. I am thinking of making up a few bottles of it and distributing it as 'dre's tire jizz' and have some incredibly profane but completely clean ramblings on there, the sort of thing that would make you laugh your *** off while reading it on a toilet... But again the irony would be I'd hardly use it... But I am psyched to try tubeless again after changing probably 5 flats in the last two weeks

The ultimate is tubes and the goo together, but it weighs so damn much. Slime is also nasty stuff.. The key is to dilute it to about 1/4 of its strength and use some other stuff added in there to compensate, like... glitter (serious)...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Cool, I missed the part about 1Speed stringing up the wheels. Sounds awesome.. I met 1Speed at OvEx also (nice to meet you again) and since you a big guy like the rest of us sounds like you'll be in good hands!

Right on...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

It is funny, it is the one area where we 'skimp' on purpose.. My friends are all on Turners and Ventana and nearly all of us are running BB7s. They are also only maybe 50 grams more I think than top of the line hydraulics. That said I was strongly thinking about hydraulics to see what I was missing but with a 203 front and a 160 rear it stops wonderfully and no real complaints other than needing to replace them every year or two... Which might be the case for regular hydraulics as well? 203 front over 185 front (what I used last time) was just enough to make be 'forget' about any lack of brake strength whatsoever which I did notice a hair with the 185s under extreme conditions...

I hear good things about the Shimano XT mineral oil hydraulics being super reliable and the Formulas as well.. But again hydraulics are also about 4x as much retail...

Also I have tried to stray away from Shimano in the past for no reason whatsoever, and I am not particular a "fan" but it is just hard to move away. I am not sure if SRAM shifters/derailleurs are any less reliable but I'll say they are close, and they also seem to shift particularly crisply as well.

hope it helps again...

I'll second Andre's suggestion on the BB7s. As people build fancy rigs, the temptation to reach for the bling with every component has some people overlooking simple parts that are near perfect for a given application. For a true backcountry rig, BB7s are tough to beat. Again, they're one of those components that can be field repaired (not that you'll need to) with just a multi-tool.

I also agree with what others have said about the 1x9 vs. 2x9 or 3x9. 2x9 is ideal for racing where that granny gear is nothing but dead weight and added complexity. If you're going add a shifter and derailleur for a mountain bike built with some touring in mind, just pop for the 3x9. However, being an avid SS rider, I tend to lean towards a 1x9 as the ideal touring set up for singletrack.

There's tons of personal preference with a build. I for one would rather take up bowling than deal with tubeless again. The thought of dinking around with tubeless tires in the backcountry makes my cringe.

 

[nickw]

Nice bike

Long time rider here and I'll second (or is that third) the remarks given to tubeless setups. I wouldn't ever do it again, major PITA. Tubes are easy to deal with and bulletproof, while the tubeless 'can' be trouble free but there is a lot more technicalities to getting it right.

Shimano is where it's at IMO. Its seems a shame to put anything less that super bling on a frame like that, but SLX (used to be LX) and/or XT are both great when it comes to durability and quality. I actually prefer the cheaper stuff and like replace it on a regular basis.


I am an mech. Avid user. I use them with a 185 discs and some Paul levers:http://www.paulcomp.com/brakelevers.html

Only one set of bars that will go with a Ti frame like that: http://www.jonesbikes.com/h-bar.html

I love my h-bars and Jeff is a very cool guy. Ironically, he is a big proponent of Avid mech discs also, he uses them on alot of his big $$$ builds (I believe are well into the $6-7K range, if not more).

I also used Jeffs 6 speed cog on a Chris King SS hub, resulting in a dishless 1x6 setup. I always thought it would be cool to use a 3-ring crank up front for a 3x6 setup:
http://www.jonesbikes.com/shop.html

 

[mountainsoul]

Those old boys from Titus are making some nice stuff. I believe Daryl took up the slack when Chris left if I'm not mistaken. Very clean lines. Nice welds. Custom geo. Plus I like their environmentally aware business concept. I rode a Prevail with the Lefty and it was a very nice bike.

And personally, I would stay away from the Hammerschmidt if reliability and ease of maintenance are factors for you. I've just seen way too many fail over the past year for me to comfortably recommend them. Especially on a bike meant for expedition type endeavors.

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Here is one more as well, from Titec which is also pretty good. I currently run Titec regular bars which I like a lot...

Titec H-Bar handlebar designed with Jeff Jones

MSRP: $89.99

HB2341

* Up Sweep 4 degrees


H-Bar

* Designed by Jeff Jones
* Unconventional design allows for multiple hand and body positions for better handling and greater comfort
* 4 degree upswing
* Welded double butted 6061-T6 Aluminum
* 45 degree sweep on extensions


Bar Clamp Diameter: 25.4 mm
Color: Black
Bend:
Material: 6061-T6
Width: 660 mm
Bar Rise: 37 mm
Weight: 430.0 g
Catalog Page: 476

Invoice Description: Titec H-Bar 25.4 Black
Manufacturer Part Number: HBHB6254-01
Country of Origin: TW
EAN13: 4710627729241
Warranty Info